Baltimore Sun: Obama Should Create Public Registry Of Gun Owners

On January 7, The Baltimore Sun gave President Obama kudos for issuing executive orders for gun control, but expressed their desire that he add another measure–a public registry of gun owners.

And the Sun wants the registry to be searchable, so that mothers can look up the parents of their children’s friends to see if they keep guns in their homes.

The article, by the Sun‘s deputy editorial page editor, put it this way:

As President Barack Obama announced plans this week to tighten background checks for gun buyers and increase gun tracking and research, I thought, that’s all well and good, but how about adding something immediately useful: a gun owner registry available to the public online — something like those for sex offenders. I’m not equating gun owners with predatory perverts, but the model is helpful here; I want a searchable database I can consult to find out whether my kid can have a play date at your house.

The Sun then pointed out that “586 people were accidentally killed with guns” in 2014, ten percent of whom were  “15 and younger.”

It is worth noting that gun control advocates formerly cited accidental gun-deaths for kids 10 years and younger. But as accidental deaths have fallen, gun-control advocates have incorporated teenagers into their accidental death-numbers. And because teenagers are involved in gang and street violence, their deaths misleadingly inflate the apparent number of deaths among young children.

But even without pointing that out, it should be noted that if “10 percent” of 586 people were “15 and younger,” that means 90 percent of them–or 527.4 people–were 16 and older.

Nevertheless, the Sun concludes:

Gun owners may feel picked on, but they are not a persecuted class. They are individuals who have chosen to keep in their homes an object whose chief purpose is to injure or kill, whether in self defense or otherwise. The rest of us should have a right to know it’s there before we — or our children — enter.

Breitbart News previously reported that former Bill Clinton official Ann Brown also wants Obama to expand his executive orders. She believes he needs to controls for ammunition purchases to the new gun controls outlined Tuesday.

Follow AWR Hawkins on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com.